Aussie voters may have elections on blockchain technology

22 August 2016

Elections on the basis of the blockchain technology could be a natural phenomenon for the Australian voters, as Australia Post is considering the new option to conduct ballots on the ground of the cryptocurrency platform as the basis for the encrypted votes of the citizens. The post agency owned by the aussie government filed an application to the Victorian Electoral Matters Committee with the proposal to use digital schemes and blockchain in priority as a secure way for voting.

According to the agency’s director the technologies at the heart of the cryptocurrency services may be used in another way and for other purposes, in this case for conducting elections and collecting votes from the citizens. He believes the blockchain may become a good option for using it as a voting platform, an alternative for cryptocurrency systems.

Citizens would be able to cast their votes regardless of their location, with their data secured against any theft and votes being traceable but at the same time secret. The voting would be encrypted into blockchain with the votes referring to each voter. The results are supposed to be retrieved from the blockchain and anonymity of the voters would be maintained so far.

The agency offers to conduct trial elections on a community level and then move further to higher levels of elections.

Meantime, the Commission expressed its doubt about the efficiency of using the technology in view of the four-year break between each election which implies development of new technologies over that period entailing new investments, which is not cost-effective. The Commission advocates the implemetation of iVote scheme designed by NSW believing the financing of that voting format would be of a long-term benefit as compared to the cryptocurrency platform.